Get Complete Satisfaction From A Day’s Work

How often do you get a sense of complete satisfaction at work? If you would like it more often, let me tell share a simple, yet delicious idea with you.

I’ve tried keeping a little to-do notebook. I picked out an especially pretty one while on vacation in Nice so that it would be extra special. I vowed to be religious with it and have it with me at all times. I would add and delete all the things I had to do. It lasted a couple of weeks. Then I started changing purses. Throwing it in my gym bag and forgetting where I put it. Leaving it in the glove compartment in the car for a week after taking the dogs for a walk and brainstorming my to-do’s for the next few days.

I don’t use my Outlook Tasks for short term items. Who wants to open your inbox with a daily deluge of 150 plus emails and then have to attend to 30 or 40 tasks sitting there? Looking at you. Making you feel guilty as sin. No my Outlook Tasks are used for only important, long term items such as follow-ups to proposals and other opportunities. Thankfully they get completed, and are easily re-dated when a prospect needs more time or I need to follow up for next year.

I’ve tried keeping it in my head. But the horrendous email that I keep having to write “oh my goodness, I am so, so, so, sorry! I forgot’ proves this method wrong. Memory is good only to a point.

I also have about 17 different lists scrawled through all over. On my desk. On my phone. In my meeting note books. They’re all more or less half crossed out.

I’ve tried using the notepad and apps on my phone as a substitute. The phone is ALWAYS with me. But I have found it to be such a pain in the you know what. How many taps to unlock the phone, get to the right app, then slowly write in each to do item. Letter by letter by letter. Definitely a pain. Or speaking it yes, Siri was great, but with the new Galaxy phone I have – I would kill to get Siri back. S Voice and Google Voice don’t hold a candle.

But something amazing happened this week. And it produced such joy and accomplishment. Monday evening I took a blank A4 piece of paper. I wrote in very large penmanship (about 14 point font) a list of eight things to do Tuesday, the next day.

By 4:00 pm, I had accomplished seven (I’m not a magician!). My goodness, the immense amount of satisfaction crossing off those seven items produced (one at a time, two next…). Let me say it again, immense! For some reason, don’t ask me why, the fact that it was written in large lettering helped up the satisfaction meter when I crossed it off.

It’s Thursday mid-morning as I write this. I’m still size 14 point font handwriting a small to do list and yes, you know it. I’m now crossing off number Three – write the article about lists.